As my students would tell you if they were here,
I became obsessed last year with the idea of a robot chimp.
And this was something that Sharper Image was selling.
And I think I like the idea of it better than the real thing.
I printed off a picture of it from I
think what George Bush calls the internets today.
It looks like this.
And you can see it later.
But anyway, this poem is called, "Robot Chimp
Writes Million Dollar Poem".
And it has an epigraph from the advertisement,
which says, "Alive chimpanzees.
So real, it's unreal.
Hollywood effects, animatronics.
Only $149.95."
Although I noticed on their website today
it's now discounted.
So.
"Robot Chimp Writes Million Dollar Poem".
"I buy the chimp for cheap, OK, for less than market price.
You do the math.
Unless the future tanks, unless these worlds unwind
to blur and tatter, [? what, ?] I'm bound to wind up rich.
These robot chimps are warrantied,
unlike well, you with your unwarrantied,
will go to Warsaw in the spring.
Unlike, don't get me started, loose lips and the like.
The chimp has four distinctive moods--
happy, feisty, fearful, and curious.
Unhappy the [? Ms. ?] who crosses him.
"Ee ee" until the cops come.
Think of crooks at a bank till.
Think of how lonely I've grown.
Woe unto the poet, grumbling.
I got the chimp to write this.
'Ahoo, ahoo, ahoo,' he said.
And 'wahaha,' and more best left unsaid."
See his moods right there, if you like, later.